Newsweak says Saddam spies may have provided evidence of WMD
Newsweek:
"Broadening an internal review of prewar intelligence on Iraq, the CIA is reexamining the credibility of four Iraq defectors whose claims were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell last year as crucial evidence that Saddam Hussein had developed a system of mobile laboratories and factories to produce biological-warfare agents, NEWSWEEK has learned.
...
"Kay told NEWSWEEK that U.S. investigators are still trying to figure out what was in Saddam?s mind before the war. There are at least two theories, he and other U.S. officials say, as to why Saddam?s intelligence service might have used double agents to plant stories with U.S. intelligence about WMD programs. One is that Saddam sent out agents with claims of continuing WMD programs to deter enemies at home and abroad, with whom he might have lost face if he conceded that WMD programs had been dismantled in response to international pressure.
"The other theory is that Saddam sent out bogus defectors with deliberately lurid WMD claims in the expectation that such claims would reach the United States and eventually be passed on to U.N. inspectors. The theory is that Saddam then believed that when the investigators checked the claims out and found them to be bogus, the Bush administration and other parties who took the claims seriously would be shown to be crying wolf. If this is really what Saddam was thinking?and intelligence sources concede that at this point it is only one theory?then Saddam outsmarted himself, since it is only now, nearly a year after the war, that prewar claims by defectors are being serious questioned."
He could be that crazy. Are we sure he is not a Democrat?
Newsweek:
"Broadening an internal review of prewar intelligence on Iraq, the CIA is reexamining the credibility of four Iraq defectors whose claims were cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell last year as crucial evidence that Saddam Hussein had developed a system of mobile laboratories and factories to produce biological-warfare agents, NEWSWEEK has learned.
...
"Kay told NEWSWEEK that U.S. investigators are still trying to figure out what was in Saddam?s mind before the war. There are at least two theories, he and other U.S. officials say, as to why Saddam?s intelligence service might have used double agents to plant stories with U.S. intelligence about WMD programs. One is that Saddam sent out agents with claims of continuing WMD programs to deter enemies at home and abroad, with whom he might have lost face if he conceded that WMD programs had been dismantled in response to international pressure.
"The other theory is that Saddam sent out bogus defectors with deliberately lurid WMD claims in the expectation that such claims would reach the United States and eventually be passed on to U.N. inspectors. The theory is that Saddam then believed that when the investigators checked the claims out and found them to be bogus, the Bush administration and other parties who took the claims seriously would be shown to be crying wolf. If this is really what Saddam was thinking?and intelligence sources concede that at this point it is only one theory?then Saddam outsmarted himself, since it is only now, nearly a year after the war, that prewar claims by defectors are being serious questioned."
He could be that crazy. Are we sure he is not a Democrat?
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